Ep. 17: Focus, Fun and New Ventures with George Bradley and Ewald Van Der Straeten from BVDS
My guests today are George Bradley and Ewald Van Der Straeten from architecture firm BVDS.
We had a great conversation which touched on:
Their new online architectural service The Two Architects which they launched during the pandemic to make architecture more accessible to more people.
Why you should focus on marketing that you enjoy and have fun doing that play to your strengths.
Their approach to social media and the importance of good photography and content.
Rate and review us
Please don’t forget to rate and review us if you’re listening on Apple podcasts as it’s lovely to hear what you think plus it helps us to spread the word.
Resources
BVDS Architects
The Two Architects
Another Architecture Podcast
Wowowa
Recorded on Thursday 18 February 2021.
Transcript.
Ayo Abbas 00:04
Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of Marketing In Times of Crisis. And I am your host, Ayo Abbas, a marketing consultant who specialises in working with firms in the built environment. Today is Thursday the 18th of February 2021. And we are in lockdown part three. My guests today are George Bradley and Ewald Van Der Straeten from architecture firm pvdf, we had a lovely conversation, which touched on many things, including why you should focus on marketing that you enjoy and evolve, evolve your wider team, their new online architectural service, the two architects which they launched last year. And we also touch on social media and how they tackle that. Anyway, if you're a regular listened to the show, you know, we really do love to hear from you. So if you can leave us a review or rate us that is really, really appreciated. And it also helps us spread the word. Anyway, as usual, I will now stop talking and let you enjoy the interview with George and Ewald, enjoy. So Hi, and welcome to the latest episode marketing times of crisis. Today, my guests are George and Ewald from BVDS. Architects. And can you just give me a brief intro to yourselves and your roles at BVDS?
George Bradley 01:20
Yes, sure. Well, thanks for having us. Yeah, so Bradley Van Der Straeten is a company that we set up about 10 years ago. We're an architecture practice. And I guess if you kind of were to ask what, you know, what we're known for what our work is, we were very much known mostly for our residential work and working on people's homes. And if we were to describe our work, we'd say it's, it's fun, it's colourful, it's livable, and this space is designed with feeling.
Ayo Abbas 01:49
Okay. And Ewald kind of I mean, so how do your roles differ in the practice? Do you do different things? Or how does it work between the two of you.
Ewald Van Der Straeten 01:57
So we are both directors of Bradley Van Der Straeten Architects. And our roles are pretty equal in both firms. So we also have another firm called The Two Architects, which is a platform or an online platform, where we offer a more distilled service for on a Pay As You Meet kind of basis. And that works across the world now actually, it is globally, rather than locally. So that both of both companies same roles?
Ayo Abbas 02:29
And how do you I guess, you launched The Two Architects during lockdown. I mean, what drove you to do that? or How did that come about?
Ewald Van Der Straeten 02:36
As I'm sure this is might sound familiar to some other business owners or in the architecture world, but over so many years of growing and gaining experience. So a certain service grows in a certain way with it. And we were noticing at the start of lockdown that we were getting a lot of inquiries to the door of smaller scale projects. And we weren't kind of set up for that at the time. But at the same time, we find that as a real opportunity missed where we couldn't necessarily keep the format, which made us think, how about we kind of redesigned the way we operate and the way we can offer our service to something that we can still make a difference. However, it's done in a distilled way. And we thought we were going to be racing other people having a similar idea because everything was happening online, and still is actually it was we thought, okay, we have a we have a bit of a race on our hands, we started developing a new website, kind of approaching a very different to a typical architecture practice. Just being more honest than transparent. And ever since once we launched it started to pick up traction.
George Bradley 03:48
Yeah, definitely. I think like what Ewald was saying the surprise that actually no one else was doing it was Yeah. It was quite, that was quite interesting. But it was, it's the approach of it is definitely answering a problem. Like people were speaking to us and saying, I can't find an architect to do my home. And you get this kind of framework where I've only got £50,000 to spend. And it's like £50,000 is a lot of money. It's just in a certain field or a certain type of work. It's it's not enough. And so it's yet very, very distilled. service.
Ayo Abbas 04:20
So in terms of setting up The Two Architects, how is that influenced? Has that changed things that you do for the BVDS practice as well? What have you learned from that?
George Bradley 04:29
It's definitely made us more more focused. We've, I mean, the way we structure is the the whole premise of The Two Architects is it's apportioned time. So we couldn't if we were with BVDS, we couldn't cater to loads and loads of inquiries and smaller projects, because we're not set up for that we're set up for working very closely with families working on beautiful homes that that take months and months of sort of preparation and thought and work with other consultants. And if we were constantly sort of, I don't wanna say distracted. It's not, it's not a negative thing, but we would be distracted by multiple contact points. So, for us, the premise of the Two Architects was, let's just apportion, one part of our time, a certain amount of hours. And that's given to this platform, people can book once it's fully booked. That's it. But it means the rest of the week, we're completely focused on on the work we're doing with the studio and the work we're doing with our team that works with us on these projects.
Ayo Abbas 05:28
So roughly what's the time split in a week, so between the two different companies,For you George,
George Bradley 05:34
It's it's six hours is how much we spend each on The Two Architects. So it's a very limited service, and we were keeping it that way at the moment, but it could easily grow. But we've, you know, our first sort of number one priority sits with BVDS, we've created over 10 years and The Two Architects is, is giving a portion of that experience to people in a very, very different way, which is that's the extremely satisfying part of it. We've developed ways of working and experience over over 10 years now. And we can we can give that in a very brief and effective and efficient format.
Ayo Abbas 06:11
And is that something you kind of would recommend that other architects architects try try out this type of model? Okay, that's one to you, George as well?
George Bradley 06:19
God, no, we want to dominate.
Ayo Abbas 06:21
With 12 hours between you.
George Bradley 06:26
Don't even know why we're talking about it on this podcast? Well, I don't think it's for everyone, I really don't. So like me and Ewald have a background of, we definitely kind of cut our teeth with our business starting with, we had like zero contacts and just sort of worked away, which which a lot of people have done, but we didn't start with working in practice, then taking some clients with us and then setting up Yeah, sort of. So we did all these, if you know, the Grand Designs events that are these Ask an Expert sections, and we'd go to these things. And it's like speed dating you'd sit there for like 20 minutes and, and trying to help people out with their project. And there's this sort of element of it's slightly transactional, but because it is it's very effective. It's very instant. Something's got to happen in that moment.
Ayo Abbas 07:10
I want do this to my house. What happens? My situation? My problem is, isn't it? Yes, it's straight? Yeah.
George Bradley 07:18
I don't think that's for everybody. I think a lot of architects would baulk at the idea.
Ayo Abbas 07:23
I can't even deny that's very, very true. So, I guess how do you approach the marketing for BVDS, as a practice overall? And did that change in the past year? I'll get that to you Ewald?
Ewald Van Der Straeten 07:35
The marketing in BVDS? I think it's they go hand-in-hand, this question is good to pass it pass two strategies off each other? Yeah, we'd be BVDS is very, very involved, it is definitely more comprehensive approach than the two architects, we have a press platform that we sign up to. So we launch new projects on it on a regular basis, we have lots of social media going on, on a very regular basis, because that's where a lot of our work comes from. I'm sure that counts for many other practices to there was also or there was a lot of networking in the past, which is now more and more moved online as we are doing now. A podcast is a form of that as well. If there is a clear strategy defined for that, to where we are trying to keep all the the marketing blades spinning, so we involve the team in that too. So, it is very kind of spread across the whole team. And it's everybody's putting their thoughts to that. And it does require quite a lot of time and thinking and creativity. Whereas if you compare that to The Two Architects then it is very, very different messaging. So we Bradley Van Der Straeten Architects marketing is set out to be inspiring and being very aspirational. Because yes, we create such a creative solutions sometimes that they haven't come up with. Whereas the Two Architects are kind of more taking the educative angle where we are transferring some of that knowledge and experience and creativity onto a very practical problem that people might have. And it's not necessarily reinventing the wheel, our voice is more, this is what you can apply in your project. And you can take some home. And there's more tips and tricks that we share. And the involvement on The Two Architects is very limited, that George was saying. We've dedicated a limited amount of time to this per week. So, we have to kind of go down the route of doing a bit more automation can't because some, some discussions are happening over and over. We kind of tried to lock that into a set of q&a, questions and things that people can read over and over. And it's a very limited time involvement on The Two Architects apart from some social media. Just because of that element of repetition is there because we've tried to prempt some of the questions that might be asked, and we kind of answering things that people want to see, because we have the experience that comes with the renovation project.
George Bradley 10:09
But it's I mean, it's very structured. It's very organised how we operate. You know, we have, we have marketing within the company, and we dedicate time to it as we do with with everything else. So it's
Ayo Abbas 10:20
allocated pot of time. Yeah,
George Bradley 10:22
Yeah, we're quite an organised outfit, as a company in that, that helps us. But also, what's been really interesting, is the combination between the Two Architects, we call it the TTA, if we kind of drop that in, but The Two Architects is it kind of is given us another avenue of something that we've sometimes felt that we maybe couldn't do, or was conflicting with what we were doing with BVDS. Yeah, and it definitely goes back to, like, about two, three years ago, we're doing a TV show and doing something that that was very different to what we were used to doing and two very different market and in a very different way. And it was less kind of very immediate and very talking to a wide range of people, like, you know, talking to millions or however many were watching it, was very different to talking to a very sort of focused group and in a very premium kind of market that we sit in with Bradley Van Der Straeten.
Ayo Abbas 11:17
I guess it's like you're you're kind of making it all a lot more practical, right? And a lot, you're kind of focused on those tips and how people can take your knowledge and then apply it themselves. Right. It's it's that much more kind of grassroots thing, isn't it?
George Bradley 11:30
Yeah, I'm being unafraid of, I think, what me and Ewald like is we are quite unafraid of marketing. We don't we don't view it as a necessary evil, we actually enjoy the communication part. And when we did the TV show was and I'm not that's not just a shameless plug, it links with it did change our minds, it was a turning point for us have, actually, it's, it's really enjoyable talking to a wider market and actually not being too precious and kind of thinking, Well, we've learned lots of things. And these are things that could be applied to somebody that just wants to switch their washing machine to their upstairs, they don't want to appoint an architect to do designs to the house or to manage a construction site. They just want to tap into those ideas. And a gradual over a few years evolution of that as then become the Two Architects of actually, there's a way that we could just say, look, we'll have a meeting with you. We'll have it for one hour, we'll sketch on screen live with you. And we'll, we'll talk some ideas. And you'll come away from that with with something tangible without having committed to an agency and to a big project.
Ayo Abbas 12:32
I like it, it's kind of making architects accessible, right?
George Bradley 12:36
Yeah, we had I mean, we had a client recently that said it democratises it which we thought that was very flattering, and very grand. We wouldn't have said that about ourselves. But because somebody else said it's fine. We can tell you that.
Ayo Abbas 12:49
Lovely though, it's nice, and as well that you can help more people to kind of, you know, have the benefits, especially as we're all in our homes so much more at the moment, aren't we? So?
Ewald Van Der Straeten 12:59
Yes, I think it's really satisfying, because we're being put on the spot, every meeting we have by the hour, we want to give that value back within that timeframe. We have to be, we are always on our A game, but it's even more intense as an arc to go through in that one hour. As the meeting goes. That's very satisfying.
Ayo Abbas 13:23
Okay, so in terms of, are they kind of tips that you would give to kind of I guess, any other practices looking to do more in terms of their marketing in the coming year? Or things that really work for you when you're starting out? For example? I'll give that one to you. It would?
Ewald Van Der Straeten 13:39
Um, Yes, I can. I certainly can give a few tips like what we've been corporate or how do you how do I say it is. We've been guilty of doing too much in the past is what I'm trying to get to, There is a lot of things you can do for marketing purposes. There's a lot of social media and you can easily get lost in it. I'm not saying we were lost in it in the past, but I do feel or we do feel that we spread ourselves a bit too thin losing focus. And now with George being the Head of Marketing, we have a few roles in the company George is doing marketing somebody else is doing operations, somebody else is doing finance. Being at the helm of that now is it's the focus is coming back and really being bored with what we do and don't do has given us that real push forwards I think. So that would be a tip, select what what you do. So you can do it. Well, obviously, obviously doing a lot can be useful. You can learn a lot along the way and you can understand, okay, this is working, this is not working but to a limit. Whereas focus can help and that sounds maybe obvious, but at the same time, we got to go through that all that learning curves ourselves to, I would say
Ayo Abbas 14:55
and George, do you have any tips on what people could be doing as well?
George Bradley 15:00
Have fun with it, I think is, is a good one. Yeah. Like Ewald was say we've had fun with it. And we still do have fun with it. But we we've been through phases where we kind of tried out everything and kind of unashamedly just let's give it a go. And, and that's been very rewarding, but also quite demanding of time and effort. And so we're now in a sort of next phase of focusing a bit more, but it was good to go through the testing as well, there's, you know, there's all these sort of, it's easy for us to sort of jump straight ahead to now but
Ayo Abbas 15:33
So, from a fun perspective, did you have any kind of selection criteria? Was there anything where you thought this is? Now we're going to refine what we're doing what works and what doesn't work?
George Bradley 15:42
No, I think with the fun to think I mean, more like, just, we should be enjoying our marketing, because we should be, we should be doing what we do, which we do. So therefore, we enjoy talking about it, and we enjoy telling people about it. But also, we've now got the confidence to go, it's okay for us to pick platforms that we think work better for us and platforms that don't. So, for example, me and Ewald could talk for England, and we could just keep on talking so about architecture and the benefit for homes and, and what you could be doing and what you shouldn't be doing. And so therefore, a platform where we can do that is quite good for us. So this podcast, for example, is excellent. Whereas we're not necessarily particularly eloquent or excellent at writing copy. So, if we don't have a budget to pay somebody to do that, for us, do we want to be spending our time doing something that we maybe don't feel that strong at and, and takes us that bit more effort? Or should we just focus on on something else? So it's, it's that kind of approach, and we're definitely kind of feeling, I think the number one thing is having good content. So if we put our effort into good content, ie having nice designs, having really good photography, all that kind of stuff that we love and that we're proud of. I don't think anyone's going to go wrong with just with focusing on on that. But I don't think people should push themselves to do marketing that they feel they have to do like Twitter, for example. I can't stand Twitter, I tried it out a couple of times, people advised, like you should really be on Twitter, and you probably be quite good at Twitter. And I just found that this awful kind of quagmire of get just getting lost in something I just did have no control or understanding of and naturally veered away from it. I think you probably would say the same as well, when you emailed?
Ayo Abbas 17:22
Um, I don't dislike Twitter, but like he's saying, I don't really enjoy it.
Ewald Van Der Straeten 17:28
I don't really enjoy it as much either, so I'm not gonna dedicate a whole lot of time to it. It is very much yeah. Do we pursue what we love doing? And that's only a few channels. It can't be everything.
Ayo Abbas 17:52
So which channels are your favoured ones? So, you definitely I know you do a podcast when I see
George Bradley 17:58
Netflix, Disney Plus.
Ayo Abbas 18:02
Yeah, it's locked down time.
George Bradley 18:05
Well, Instagram is the number one avenuw for us. And naturally, you can it's very visual. And you know, what we do is is very visual. But really interesting. Like if we go like going back a few years before we were on things like Facebook, and on Instagram, we had a client that was in advertising advertising, and I remember her saying at one point to me, and he was saying, you guys should totally be on Facebook, like what you do is so visual people will want to see what are you doing? And and that seemed like a new idea that I was like, Oh, wow. Yeah, that's, that's a good idea. Now it's so kind of obvious because everybody's doing. But yeah, there's no question that Instagram is the kind of key one for us in terms of the everyday platform. Yeah.
Ayo Abbas 18:47
But yeah, but you're absolutely right. Focus on on the channels that you love, otherwise it's just a chore or isn't it and you won't want to do it. Exactly, I think is the huge thing.
Ewald Van Der Straeten 18:58
There's so much out there that you can lose focus as well, again,
Ayo Abbas 19:01
Yeah, this new one is clubhouse is the new one that's out at the moment.
George Bradley 19:05
Somebody was recommending that the other day. And I was like, is this a work thing? Or is this something else?
Ayo Abbas 19:09
Well, it's an audio platform and audio networking platform, but it only it's on Apple at the moment? It's invite only and yeah, everyone's like, eyes it this way, but you have live rooms. It's a bit like podcasting. And you have different people with themes, but I'm an Android user, I can't get on it.
Ewald Van Der Straeten 19:29
Discrimination from the from the get go.
Ayo Abbas 19:30
It's just cuz I don't want to pay Apple prices. But there's always new channels and new things coming out. It's kind of like you say, focusing on the ones that actually really matter to you. Can you tell me a bit about your podcast and how that kind of helps your business and your marketing? Does it? Does it? Who knows? Yeah. I mean, the podcast is like very much a lockdown project probably started around the same time as yours. So, I don't know when you started. Yeah, I started July, July.
George Bradley 20:00
Yeah, so yes, uh, you were copying me then because I started in May,
Ayo Abbas 20:04
Excuse me I did research from February.
George Bradley 20:08
Yeah, we started around May but it was very much we were meeting you were talked a lot about doing one together. And I think there's a lot of realities that come into play we both got for both now have two kids each. And, and lockdown was clearly placing it's kind of demands as well of all the other stuff that was going on. But so, ultimately, it became a thing that I set up of, just on a very sort of personal level, it was, the world got very small and, and a lot more isolated all of a sudden, and this is a really, really nice avenue to just have something else and be talking to other people all over the world. So, other people have totally different experiences. But the one common thread is it's architecture and it's homes. But you know, getting to speak to, you know, speaking to somebody that's based in Lebanon, and I had an interview scheduled with them. And it was literally the day after the explosion that happened. And you suddenly have this weird sort of connection or community connection going around the world of and this guy was then still extremely keen to go ahead with with an interview and talk about architecture, because it was, hopefully for him it was a kind of outlet as well of being able to talk about something else. But so again, it's just doing something that's just for fun, there was no pre-ambition of listeners or any or, or income or anything like that. It's purely just for fun. But that fun does. It's just engaging isn't it was something it does lead to connections and exposure and just having something for me talking about something that I really love, like, there's no effort there. It's just conversations about stuff that I want to talk about.
Ayo Abbas 21:46
Yeah, and that's the thing. And I love about podcasting is the fact that I can write to people and just go "Hi, will you come on", and it's all genuine. I'm not forced to do it in any way, shape, or form. It's kind of like, actually, I like what these guys are doing. Right? Like, it's just different things that and, and also, I kind of think, especially when it comes to marketing, people aren't necessarily having the right conversations about marketing. And I think it's quite important to kind of showcase the types of things people should be considering and what they should be doing. So that's kind of one of the reasons I set up and started to do it. Yeah. So in terms of marketing for the next few months, or the next a quarter, I guess we're in February now. So what things have you got kind of lined up what's in your pipeline? Is it more of the same or any particular kind of big milestones or completions coming out, I'll give that one to you Ewald.
Ewald Van Der Straeten 22:31
The next few months, we definitely want to do more of the same so that we can't kind of let that go quiet, we want to keep building on what's already in motion, it's a lot easier to get things in motion than to start up something fresh, for starters, in terms of effort and time to ever quiet. But then we also want to think a bit more longer term where we want to do different kinds of projects and diversify our portfolio. And that does require a bit more long term thinking to start building different kinds of contacts, and meeting different kinds of people that might get us closer to work. That's not necessarily homes or residential architecture. Not that we want to turn our backs from architecture, but it's just, it's always good for depth of portfolio is, again, a different kind of fun we can have, and a different kind of enjoyment that we want to explore. But that does require a bit more time. So it's going to be a trial and error process, just like we've kind of learned and done to get to this point with the residential market. We feel that we've come to a point where we are mastering some aspects, not everything. We're not masters of our marketing, necessarily, but much feel with diversification it does, it is a bit out of our depth again, and that's a good thing. Kind of trying something new and trying out things without having the actual focus just yet because we don't know what that focus needs to be. But we know that we need to do it regularly.
Ayo Abbas 24:02
But you know, so yeah, that's fantastic. So you're definitely looking for longer term, and well, that's gonna be right. So just moving on to what's happening at the moment. So are there any kind of standout marketing campaigns or any practices or anything in general that you've really enjoyed? I guess in the past few months that you've thought, oh, that that's an amazing campaign. I'm going to give that one to George as Head of Marketing.
George Bradley 24:27
There's one company that stands out when I was thinking about it, it's was the first company that I interviewed on the podcast called Wawa architects and, and they're an Australian firm. And I mean, just the name just in itself as it i think is just great marketing. You just hear that name you think, Okay, well, wow, they must do really cool buildings about their work lives up to the lives up to the name as well. But what I love about them and we kind of follow quite a lot of Australian practices and what they're doing Because there's, there's so much amazing work particularly in the residential field coming out of Australia. But also there's a an amazing attitude as well of exactly what we're talking about of having fun with marketing. And we're we're just a really good example of that if they have this tagline of life's too short for boring spaces, which I think is just great. It's a great line, it's just straight away, you're attracting, like extremely fun clients that are just willing to have a go. But also, they did this thing during lockdown. That was, I can't remember what it's called, like something along the lines of Oh, oh, baby, if you were mine, or something like that. It's this, this is this line. And basically, they would during lockdown in Melbourne, they were telling people to just write in, if they've got a house that they want to feature on this, this thing that they were doing, just sending the details of the house. And then one of the principals of the office would just go outside stand on the street to the house and always do a little short video. And it was just starting with the line. Oh, blardy blar if you were mine, and then talk about the things that they would do, and it literally like a five minute you know, we'd love this fenestration. Yeah, and it's like, you just get featured on the thing of like, I just thought was really, really nice lockdown thing.
Ayo Abbas 26:12
That's a brilliant idea. Absolutely brilliant. And he well, did you have any inspirational kind of marketing campaigns over locked down or anything that he fought? Yep, I love that.
Ewald Van Der Straeten 26:20
What I did notice in the especially the first lockdown is the creative ideas that many practices or many companies came up with today with lockdown, to be different to step outside their own comfort zone, I found that really inspiring of maybe I wouldn't mind giving some of that a goal. And which then that some of that thinking led to The Two Architects, for example. And some of that led to some of the things that we're doing with the Bradley Van Straeten Architects, I'm thinking more like, being more transparent with what we do. Trying out some new technologies, and just showing to whatever was happening online, specifically social media, how things would work and how things could work. And then you see, sometimes even clients popping up on certain videos, I think that's all very, very new stuff, versus where we were architecture was before COVID, or before the pandemic.
Ayo Abbas 27:14
And I think it's forced people to go online and actually start using it properly. Because I think we're behind in some ways, the way that we embrace digital, and things like that. I think, actually, it's like, actually, there's a whole world out there that we can tap into. I wonder actually, when we do come out how much of this will stay? Yeah, and your opinions on that.
Ewald Van Der Straeten 27:34
I think it will go back a bit towards the pre-pandemic times as well. But I think some something will some things will see and some things will go and I think it will be just more go 50/50 or more balanced. Yeah. Want to do work from home a bit more during the week, and doing a bit more zoom meetings. But I can't see myself doing all the time zoom meetings like we are today. And then deliver all of our service on that, as we are currently forced to do so. No, yeah, I think it does seem to take time, for example, is very practical. There are things that will stay for sure. In video conferencing being one big one, I think for sure. And then being able to work from home. And when everything comes with it.
Ayo Abbas 28:16
Absolutely.
George Bradley 28:17
There's definitely a positive impact, though, of that the zoom thing of when we're having meetings with clients, like in terms of coming out of this, like not being 100% on zoom, let's hope not, because being in person and all the things you pick up. But what we're getting from meetings at the moment, many would have, you know, we've invested in these tablets where we can draw on screen and things and and they're working amazing for The Two Architects but just generally going forward, it's definitely see it becoming a bit more of a combination, if you're going to meet somebody in person being in their house, having a coffee talking with them. But then little follow up bits rather than this great pressure being it has to be the next time we come to the house. And it's this and it's that just the little snippets in between of actually just sharing a screen with them and drawing live there and then it's extremely engaging. It's in many ways better than the in-person for many things. That's what we have definitely learned this last year.
Ayo Abbas 29:07
I think for me, I think it is going to be that hybrid, I think, marketing and how businesses work. And I think you're right, are we getting the best of both worlds? I think, you know, events and stuff, I kind of think actually some of these interactive stuff or, you know, live streaming and stuff that stuff we haven't done but we should have done, you know, for something well, we either would have been because it actually contents usable from you know, forever. And I think that's the that's the kind of stuff that we've kind of missed out on or not and always just kind of an impasse and the only way
George Bradley 29:36
I can teach you the other day and just saying about parents evening now going being in these video sessions, and the teacher she's like, this is how we should always be doing it. It's so much better.
Ayo Abbas 29:49
You like that. Okay, so on to my final, final question. So if there's one tip you can give to a fellow architectural practice or other firm in the built environment, about marketing and what they could or should be doing now, what would that be? Who wants to go first?
Ewald Van Der Straeten 30:09
I can go first.
Ayo Abbas 30:10
Go on Ewald. Um, I think dare take a bit of risk, especially in times of crisis, which is also the title of this podcast episode. I think, because you've got less to lose, you're being forced to think outside your own box. This is also the time to do to be able to take risk and go for something that you didn't dare to do before. Because times are so different at the moment, people aren't going to frown upon something new these days. And I think that can be hugely beneficial on a personal level, but also on a business level, I think from from both sides. That does count as a tip, take risks. Let's get to definitely. And on to you, George.
George Bradley 30:56
I mean, I'd echo that. That's the number one, but also just a really practical one, to invest in good photography. I mean, if you're not investing good photography now then you should be. I mean, it's because if everything's online, you've got to that's the way you're going to see stuff. You know, the idea is people see your buildings, but if they can't,
Ayo Abbas 31:16
can't see them as good as they actually are in person. It's Yeah, that's definitely Yeah. Okay, thank you both so much for coming on the show. It's really appreciated. Thanks.
George Bradley 31:24
Thanks for having us. been fun. Thank you.
Ayo Abbas 31:32
Thanks for listening to the latest episode of Marketing In Times of Crisis. If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review, as it helps us to spread the word and for more people to get to hear about us. If you want to know more about things mentioned in the episode, do look at the show notes which will give you more information about where to find us and also about our show website. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed it and have a great day. Bye
